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Original poster

Frozen out for speaking up at work (academia)

38 replies

NineteenSeventySix · 10/12/2022 16:03

I've lurked here for a while and am seeking some advice...
I work in a large department at a RG university where GC views are openly ridiculed and dismissed by staff and students (with nothing but the usual rhetoric to back this up). This term I decided I’d had enough of feeling silenced so I started to challenge a few of these comments when they came up - always calmly and in the spirit of respectful debate. Since then I’ve been blanked by colleagues, had emails ignored and been left out of a meeting about a new project I was supposed to be working on. I’m 100% certain this is not in my head as I’ve previously only ever been on very good terms with colleagues. I suspect my line manager is sympathetic to my views but is unwilling to admit it, so I don’t feel I can speak to him about it, and there’s no-one else I feel safe talking to at work: HR and senior management are utterly captured and my union is.... well, UCU. I need the job and I've worked hard to get it, but I have no idea how to continue to work in such an isolating and intimidating environment. Any advice on how to deal with this would be gratefully received!

OP posts:
Original poster
NineteenSeventySix · 10/12/2022 18:03

Thank you @Signalbox. Stonewall et al really do seem to have accomplished what they set out to achieve, terrifyingly. I knew things were bad in my line of work but actually being on the receiving end of it has been a real shock.

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Signalbox · 10/12/2022 17:48

If you are being frozen out or blanked that is bullying. It's hard to put your finger on it because it is passive aggressive. GC women are vulnerable to being discriminated against because Stonewall et al have done such a fantastic job of demonising people who are resistant to gender ideology. Good luck I hope you can get find some support. You were very brave to put your head above the parapet!

Original poster
NineteenSeventySix · 10/12/2022 17:44

Brilliant, thank you @pattihews - I will listen to this tonight. Yes, "painful healing" is a good way of putting it! Here's hoping for a good outcome for her...

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pattihews · 10/12/2022 17:38

Here's a podcast interview with Jo Phoenix, who has been in your position. Jo's case comes to court next year and after that your position should be more secure.

lgballiancecymru.wales/roll-up-roll-up-for-podcasts-here/

Jo talks about what's going on as painful healing. It's just sad that it's so bloody painful for people like you and her. Who'd have thought that here in the 'free' UK people would feel they were living with the Stazi looking over their shoulder?

Original poster
NineteenSeventySix · 10/12/2022 17:27

@Signalbox yes, I think I need to get something on record now in case things get worse - it feels like I'm being bullied but in ways I can't quite point to and say "X did this to me" as it's been several relatively minor things from various people. Will look into FSU & SM - thank you.

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Signalbox · 10/12/2022 17:22

Could you get it on the record that you feel you are being discriminated against due to your protected belief? It might offer you some protection at a later date. Also perhaps approach Free Speech Union or Sex Matters for advice. I recently read that FSU deal with many many cases of discrimination against GC feminists.

Anklespraying · 10/12/2022 17:14

There's hardly any transgender people in universities apart from the enbys. It's been massive fuss about very little.

What is clear is that the focus is shifting to genuine financial hardship and the mental health impact, far bigger and far more important than hair style led identities.

Change the subject and see what happens.

Original poster
NineteenSeventySix · 10/12/2022 17:04

Not so much a benefit when it potentially affects my livelihood, which is already precarious enough. I very much hope you're right about this authoritarian faction of the left moving on to something new before long though (god only knows what that will be!)

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Anklespraying · 10/12/2022 16:50

University culture is far left. You are only going to find material with a far left bias as conservative staff and students don't speak up, the far left culture is too agressively dominant to permit this.

Transgender is a current left obsession. I'm sure they will move on soon.

If your loony Left colleagues are ignoring you I would take that as a positive benefit.

Original poster
NineteenSeventySix · 10/12/2022 16:39

@Balaya you're right, I just feel a bit exhausted at the thought of going through all that tbh! I'm going to have a think over the holidays about how to raise this with my manager in the first instance.

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Original poster
NineteenSeventySix · 10/12/2022 16:37

That is good to know, @Anklespraying . Perhaps I'm dismissing them too quickly, but that's been the impression I've received from the Q&A-type sessions I've watched with senior members of my dept/university, and from the general stance they seem to take (eg endless transgender policies but comparatively little on women, disability, etc. And the fact I can find no recorded talks, podcasts by GC speakers on their website but there are several very biased, pro-TRA ones. Ditto the near-total absence of GC literature in the library).

I agree the behaviour can be very childish indeed. Most of my younger (under 40-ish) colleagues are, like me, on short-term contracts so I don't know if it's down to length of time in post, but there's certainly an atmosphere of oneupmanship and a real fear of going against the party line. It's really unpleasant.

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Balaya · 10/12/2022 16:27

Not in academia but you need to speak to both your manager and HR.

GC is a belief and so protected by the equalities act.

If your employers don't get their act together begin a grievance.

Anklespraying · 10/12/2022 16:23

I work in senior management in a RG Uni and we are not "utterly captured". The senior HR colleagues I have discussed this with don't take a side and are open minded. The senior academic leaders know that students are highly emotional about this and they humour that, it's not many of them and after all mostly they are gone in three years.

The general behaviour of academics to each other is very childish. I don't know what causes this other than that the vast majority have never left "school" and behave accordingly. In the main academics stay in their jobs for decades too so the prevailing culture is of people who dislike each other for years and years.

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